Two 'firsts' in one week!

On Thursday I had my first Starbucks coffee, a Toffee Nut Latte with whipped cream, and it was quite nice. I am not a great fan of flavoured coffees, I prefer black coffee or cappuccino, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The four of us had so much fun chatting away that we completely lost track of time. Those are the best times!

No longer a Starbucks virgin ;-)

My second first was last night. I went to a Armin van Buuren concert. I have been to concerts before, some memorable ones from Prince when he was still called Prince for instance, but never to see a DJ at work. I wasn't planning on going because I only know one 'song' and I was afraid the dance/trance scene was not really my cup of tea, but my friends convinced me to come along and I am happy I did.

Getting ready I felt like I did when I was a teenager: What to wear? What to bring? What to expect? Well, in the what-to-wear department I was anything but a teenager. I was wearing a lumbo sacral belt, a back support much like a corset. No way I would be able to stand and dance for hours if I had no back support. It also nicely tucks in the tummy, so it reduces some of the more wobbly bits that come with age. Added bonus!

Inge and I were ready to go to the concert

We arrived early to avoid long lines at the ticket counter and had lots of time to wander around the venue and warm up our dance moves with the Indian DJ that got the beat going before Armin started. In Bangalore all nightly entertainment involving alcohol closes at 23:00 hrs., so the concert started early and was finished by 21:45 hrs. another thing that is great for the 'elderly' among us (not to mention for parents who's children are going clubbing).



When we could still get close to the stage

The Indian DJ warming up de crowd

Armin van Buuren at work

The concert was great, I liked the music a lot more that I had anticipated and with my back support firmly in place I was able to dance the whole night.
We did have to put some effort into keeping enough space around us unfortunately. Not because it was overly crowded, but because of the Indian men that came too close for comfort. The alcohol consumption was high and the smell of a certain type of cigarette was at times overwhelming, so not everyone was aware of boundaries anymore (Indians have a different perception of personal space anyway and get too close for comfort at the best of times). Luckily for us it stayed limited to standing too close or asking us silly questions, but I heard others got touched (very) indecently.


So all in all it was an exiting week. Let's see what this week will bring us.

At the slum today

As every Tuesday I went to the slum today. I brought my camera along and took some photos to give an impression of the day. I also took some videos, but I have to figure out how to get them on the blog. Maybe later.

Daily life

The women were sorting, cutting and cleaning tetra packs. Dirty work and very smelly too.
I bought myself a nice bag today, a woman can never have enough bags! If you feel like you have to have one of these lovely tetra pack bags (and who doesn't?), let me know and I will be happy to get you one (or two or many).

Lots of small Tropicana guava packs gave their life for this bag

Children

The baby in the top left photo is 1 month old and sooooo tiny. If you look closely you can see the black lines on the eyebrows and above the nose. It is believed that you have to make your baby look ugly so the devil won't come to take it.


On the way home I bought a big box of strawberries and some mandarins/oranges. We are totally into smoothies these days, so guess what flavour it will be tonight...

8 boxes in one big box, yummy!

Blessing

It is on days like the past few, that I am very grateful for the household help and driver we have. I have spent most of the last 3 days flat on my back in bed because of a (literally) crippling back pain and in the mean time the house got cleaned and the shopping was done. Bliss.

I have read two books and caught up on several Dutch TV shows. Not bad at all, if only my back would get better quicker.....

Nothing much (but a few surprises)

This blog is called 'What's going on with the Spaanders?' and I haven't written anything this week so I guess that sums it all up.
It is not that nothing has happened of course, but I just don't think there was a lot going on that I could write an interesting blog about.

The first week of school and work has come and gone. Monday was an all time low for all of us. The boys needed to be dragged out of bed and got on the school bus in a bad mood that morning and came out of the bus in the afternoon in the same foul mood. It took them a few days to get back into a routine and leave for school in a (slightly) better mood. This weekend is a long weekend, so they have 4 days to get over it all.

Adriaan went to KL on Wednesday, so after battling one jet lag he could start the next.

It took me some time to feel at home again too, but instead of moping about, I decided to get out and catch up with friends. Always a good way to spend the day ;-)

There were two occasions this week where I found myself wondering how to respond to/feel about other people's action (or lack of action).
The first occasion was when somebody called me to let me know she accidentally received one of my magazines in the mail. {Our mail goes via the office and both our surnames names start with an S, but that is the one and only similarity that our names have, so the mail room just couldn't be bothered to check it properly apparently. I was missing one magazine, but Simon is missing at least 2} She had wondered how come she received this magazine, but had opened the plastic wrapper (with my name on it!) anyway and had read it before putting it back in the plastic and checking who's it was.... I found that odd to say the least, but was happy that she would hand it to me after all. When her driver dropped it of and I took it out of the plastic it looked like it was well read (to put it politely) and the cover was torn and fell off...
I am still not sure whether to laugh about it or get annoyed by it, but I am surprised about it to say the least. 

The second occasion was at the Dutch Club New Year's party yesterday. My friend Inge and I had both announced we would leave the committee as of yesterday after three years and two years in it. We had announced it right after the summer break and in December there were 5 people willing to start as the new committee from January.
Only one of those 5 was there yesterday, but nothing was organised to thank us for our time and effort. A friend of ours decided to give an impromptu speech to thank us and we got a round of applause and that was it. At least it proved to us it was the right decision to stop. Out of the 4 committee members we were the ones that did most of the work and we knew nothing would happen if we didn't organise it ourselves.
Again I am not sure whether to laugh about it or to feel annoyed, but I guess I'll just have to get over it, because however I feel won't make any difference to the situation.

So, let's see what next week will bring us. It is going to be a strange week with the boys off from school on Monday and Tuesday and Adriaan having a holiday on Wednesday. There is a 3 day festival called Pongal and apparently everybody just picks a day for their holiday. Unfortunately CISB and Shell picked two different days.

A New Year has begun

2014 started with packing suitcases. Not the most fun way maybe, but school starts again on the 6th of January and we like to be home a few days before so we can acclimatize. We left the Netherlands on Thursday afternoon with wet and grey weather and arrived in Bangalore on Friday morning to sunshine and warm weather. We slept for most of the afternoon, had a restless night and slept till about lunch time again. Waking up early on Monday morning doesn't look very appealing from where we are right now...

I want to wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014. May it be a good year for all!

Holidays

We are in the Netherlands for the holidays. It is nice to be home for Christmas.

Counting sleeps

The count down to the Christmas holidays have started. The last weeks are always hectic, but fun too.

We celebrated Sinterklaas with the Dutch Club. Simon and I were Zwarte Piet and we had great fun.

Simon in the middle, Inge on the right and I am on the left

Our arrival

It was sooooooo warm, my make up was melting